


it feels so right (being here with you tonight)

by orphan_account



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Fluff, mostly peter and gamora but also team fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2271189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Peter Quill slept with Gamora totally, completely innocently, and one time he upped the ante. </p><p>(Or, a look into Gamora and Peter Quill's friendship in five encounters in which one or both fell asleep).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing these characters so please be gentle on me! That being said if there's any glaring character issues please do let me know below, I am just finding my feet with these guys though!
> 
> This very 'pwp'-ish and idk why this has gotten as long as it has, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone! I intended this as a oneshot with all 6 encounters in one, but each scenario took on a life of its own so they've been put into their own chapters. 
> 
> I'm not really sure how much this falls into film canon and/or comic canon, I just decided to have fun and go with it, since the idea is about as far from serious as can be. 
> 
> I'd very much enjoy hearing what people think if anyone has time to leave a comment at the bottom, thanks!

**I.**

Once Drax was onside, which was something of a loose description for the man’s mindset, granted, but Peter had never been one to bite the hand that feeds, (except for that one time with that Aaskvarian but that was at least slightly different), they sort of had the run of the Kyln. As much as one _could_ have the run of a prison. And as much as ‘having the run of’ meant not being brutally murdered at any given moment.

Drax had made sure everyone knew that Gamora was not to be harmed or harassed further, which, in all honesty, had been Peter’s choice of words, since something about Drax saying that Gamora was to be “kept alive”, felt a bit too vague for his liking. And, between the big guy scaring the ever-loving hell out of anyone who had been calling for Gamora’s head on a spike (an actual demand Peter had heard on their first night), and Groot’s little display of strength when they’d arrived, everyone was now giving them a wide berth.

And that included Gamora herself. After she’d agreed to their deal following the unsavoury incident in the showers, she’d found herself a quiet corner and had scarcely left it since. There was something almost distressing about watching her sat there alone.

“You remember that whole thing where she tried to rob and kill you the instant she met you, right?” Rocket asked as he watched Peter stare at her as he ate dinner, wondering if he should approach her, maybe invite her to join them.

He nodded irritably. “ _Yes._ But – ”                   

“Good, cause I just wanted to check all your cognitive processes were functioning well,” Rocket went on, undeterred. “You know, well for a _Terran_.” He snickered.

“I am Groot.”

Rocket’s snicker turned to a sigh. “All right, all _right_ ,” he said, acquiescing under his friend’s solemn gaze. “Sorry,” he said, turning back to Peter. “Low blow.”

Peter was rather used to Rocket’s Terran jabs by now, shrugging this last one off both figuratively and literally as he watched a group of Badoon pass by Gamora, making lewd gestures.

“I am Groot?”

“What do you mean ‘maybe he should go over to her’?” Rocket cried, throwing his hands (paws? – Peter still wasn’t quite sure how he should refer to Rocket, or behave around him) above his head. “Of _course_ he shouldn’t go over to her. Right?” he directed the question at Peter, who shrugged again. Disbelieving, Rocket went on, now gripping tightly at the fur around his face. “You like having a head, right? You like your head where it is yeah?”

“I don’t think that’s really what she’s all about,” Peter replied quietly, more to himself than the others.

“I am Groot,” came the thoughtful reply nonetheless. Peter was no closer to understanding Groot’s words, but he was learning to pick up on tone, at least. Well, he thought he was, anyway.

“Well yeah, I knew _you’d_ agree, Groot. But that look she gave just you, _Starlord,_ suggests she’s not impressed. By you, or your constant cow eyes, I’d guess.”

“They’re _not_ cow eyes.”

“Are so.”

“Are not.”

“Are s– ”

“I am _Groot_ ,” came the forceful cry and, when both Quill and Rocket fell silent, Groot nodded decisively, as though that settled the matter.

* * *

 

He waited until later that night, when both Groot and Rocket were snoring loudly, albeit discordantly and completely out of time with one another, before getting to his feet and picking his way through the sea of sleeping men, throwing a light kick to the shoulder of the one man whose foot seemed to be perpetually pressed into Peter’s cheek, no matter where he slept.

“Hey.”

She’d been staring at a spot on the floor, and flinched slightly when he spoke, and if he didn’t know better he’d have said she didn’t hear him coming. But he _did_ know better.

When she turned, however, and he saw her up close, he could see that she was tired, eyes red-rimmed and unfocussed. She said nothing when she saw him, merely eyed him warily.

“Can I?” he gestured to the spot on the floor next to her, and she shrugged.

“If you want.”

He crouched to sit down beside her, unconsciously mirroring her position; back against the wall, one knee crooked up in front of her, other leg stretched straight out. She had her elbow propped up on her knee, fingers absently combing through the strands of hair that kept falling loose from her braid.

“What do you want Quill?” she asked softly, after a minute or two of silence. He realised, now, just how tired her voice sounded, how utterly defeated she seemed.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just thought you might want some company. I dunno. I guessed you might be sick of being alone. And you don’t have to be alone, so…” he trailed off unhelpfully, but figured the message was received well enough, anyway.

She crooked an eyebrow at him, expression disbelieving.

“Well, we’ve sort of all been thrown in this together now, haven’t we? And we’ve got that escape plan Rocket seems to think he’s made up for tomorrow, or the day after maybe. You still want in, right?”

She surveyed him for a second, eyes searching and unsure.

“Why?” she asked eventually.

“I – what? Don’t you want to get out of here?”

She shook her head, frustrated. “I mean why would you give me the option? Why are you doing this to me? Being ki – being like this?”

“We agreed. You have the orb, we all need it – or the money it’ll bring – for something or other. Makes sense to work together.”

She sighed, impatient.

“I don’t exactly want to put ideas in your head Quill, but if you escaped without me I couldn’t _stop_ you taking the orb for yourself. So that makes me wonder why you’re offering me a part in all of this?”  

He frowned. He didn’t really have an answer for that. He supposed the ‘we’re in this together’ sentiment came from his Ravager days, when the ‘brothers in arms’ mindset had been key, especially in desperate times. Not to mention his whole ‘integrity’ peeve; he’d made a promise and he was going to keep it.

“It’s what you do, isn’t it? When you’re a team. Or friends, I guess. You just stick together, don’t you?”

“Friends?” She laughed quietly at that, a harsh sound devoid of any trace of happiness. “I don’t have any of those. Thanos always saw to that.”

He suppressed a shudder at the way she spoke that name. There was such negativity in those two syllables, such a mix of fear, hatred, resentment and everything else in between, that it half-scared him.

“Well you could do, is my point. You could have friends. Now. If you wanted them.”

She turned sharply to look at him, expression one of genuine surprise; eyes wide and lips parted ever so slightly. She seemed to chew over the idea, but still looked unsure, and kept silent as she settled back against the wall.

It wasn’t as though he blamed her. Anyone who spent their whole life surrounded by hostility and hatred would find it hard to adjust to anything different, hard to ever let their guard down fully.

It was about then that he joined up all the dots.

“You look tired,” he said, careful to keep his tone gentle.

The mirthless laugh returned.

“Of _course_ I’m tired, Quill. Funnily enough, it’s hard to get a good night’s rest in a building full of people who want your blood.”

Something about that statement had his heart sinking down to the rough area his stomach usually inhabited. Though that could also have been the prison food, it was hard to tell.

“To be fair, I’m pretty sure I heard that guy over there,” he pointed to a sleeping figure nearby, “say he wanted your still-beating heart in his hands, not your blood,” he tried, hoping against all hope she would see the joke for what it was. It seemed touch and go for a second, and he was half-set to run, when, for the first time since he’d sat down, she actually relaxed against him. And when she laughed that time, the sound was a little softer around the edges and he had the sudden, overwhelming urge to find out all the ways he could coax _that_ laugh from her, instead of the sad, defeated one.

“Thanks Quill,” she said eventually, sarcastic, one corner of her mouth turning up slightly. It wasn’t exactly a real smile, and it was gone after a second, but it was a start. “Still, one way or another, everyone in this room wants me dead.”

“Not everyone,” he said suddenly, and the change in his tone had her staring at him again. He was uncomfortable under her gaze, but he wouldn’t turn away if it would convince her that he was on her side. Because, in spite of what he’d said about not caring if she lived or died, he knew for certain that he was on her team, even if he still didn’t know exactly _why_ just yet. He stared at her until she finally looked away, although, by the time she did, he’d almost got lost in a pair of dark eyes so deep and full of horror he could have mapped out whole galaxies beneath each pupil.

“Fantastic. Everyone but one, then. I must be hitting at what? Zero point zero, zero, zero, zero, one per cent,” she said, deliberately hyperbolic, finally dropping her distant, detached façade enough for him to take a tiny peek at what lay beneath the hundred-foot walls she’d put up around herself. 

“I mean, Groot seems to like you too but, he’s a tree so, I guess he kinda likes a lot of people. People who aren’t lumberjacks, maybe. And, I mean, he hasn’t tried to impale you like that other guy, so that’s probably a good sign too. Even if all he says is ‘I am Groot’ and I can’t really understand him. But I’m _pretty_ sure he likes you, so that’s got to up your average at least a little.”

“Are you trying to make this better? Or worse?” That half smile was back in place again and he found he liked it.

“Hey!” he protested, indignant, but he couldn’t really argue the point. “No, okay, fair. I hear you,” he conceded as he hid a yawn behind the back of his hand.

“You should sleep, Quill.”

“So should you.”

She sighed again. “I _told_ you – ”

“And I told _you_. You’ve got friends now and – ”

“Friend _s_?” she queried, emphasising the plural in his statement.

“At least _one_ friend then, whether you like it or not. So, I’ll take the first watch, shall I?”

He folded his arms and shuffled purposefully so he could sit taller, turning away from her both to allow to her to get comfortable, and to block out any further protests she might have.

It took a moment, but eventually she shifted against him and, slowly, although they were scarcely touching, he felt her breathing even out, until he could safely assume she was asleep. 

* * *

 

Of course, he’d had no intention of disturbing her in the night, prodding her awake only just ahead of the usual wake-up call, figuring she’d want to be up and alert again before everyone else rose.

She’d slept fitfully, often twitching and tensing beside him, lost to what he could only assume were nightmares, but he’d kept his gaze fixed resolutely on everything and anything but her, determined to make sure, if she woke in the night, she knew she could trust him.

She cleared her throat once she’d woken, eyes bleary but already much brighter than they had been earlier.

“Thanks, Quill,” she told him as he wordlessly got up to leave, and he could tell from the twist in her voice just how sincerely she meant it. It was almost a nice moment. Almost. Until –

“I mean, tell anyone I’d been having trouble sleeping and I’ll rip your eyes out. But also, _thank you_.”

He was pretty sure she was joking, and was even surer that her joining them for dinner that night proved it. 


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

For a deadly assassin and dangerous living weapon, she sure didn’t sleep like one.

He’d not exactly been able to pick up on that one way or the other back in the Kyln, but now he could say that she looked rather peaceful, and almost sweet, when she slept.

Besides, Peter didn’t exactly know what a dangerous living weapon _should_ look like when asleep.

He supposed he’d imagined it all the clichéd ways, had perhaps subconsciously thought she’d spend her nights just lying there, stretched out on her back, poker straight and tense, asleep but barely resting. Maybe he thought he’d find her with one of her hands clenched around a weapon of some kind (although there was no telling where she might, hypothetically, have stashed her weapons – her knives were conspicuous by their absence in her small sleeping quarters). He’d always wondered, at least half-seriously, if all assassins actually _did_ sleep with one eye open.

But when he crept into her bunk, and found her doing nothing more simply sleeping soundly on her side, all curled up with her knees pressed towards her stomach, her chin tucked to her collar, he realised how stupid an assumption that had been. Not least because this was _Gamora_ , and she’d been surprising him pretty much since day one anyway.

Her hair had gone unbraided, and was spread out around her; a multi-coloured corona, and she had her arms crossed over a small bundle of bunched up bedcovers which she held tightly to her chest. He bit back a smile at the thought that she resembled a child cuddling a stuffed toy, focussing instead on the reassuring sound of her deep breathing, watching as her shoulder moved in time with each long breath in and out.

It made him feel strangely pleased to see her sleeping so soundly and looking for all the world as though she felt…well, content and safe. He tamped that little flare of happiness down slightly; badass, effortlessly cool outlaws weren’t supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy inside at the sight of a team member – and a friend – sleeping quietly.

Not least because it was a scene which he really shouldn’t be observing anyway. It was probably all kinds of voyeuristic, with one huge dose of creepy on the side, except for the small detail that he was incredibly, indescribably worried about her. Worried sick, in fact.

No pun intended.

The whole thing had started after they’d been contacted by Nova Prime herself, calling in a favour. It had been a normal enough mission (though they were always the ones that seemed to go wrong), or as normal a mission as possible when it came to their newly-formed team. They’d been in pursuit of a small group of criminals wanted on Xandar, and the only thing strange about the mission was where it had taken them. He’d never heard of the planet in question before, but that was probably because it was near-abandoned, and so remote it skirted the very edges of the galaxy. Even just approaching the place had given him chills. And that was _before_ they found out that even the air there could be dangerous. Helpfully, they’d not been warned beforehand about the planet’s weird, apparently toxic air. Although to be fair, that might have been because, for all intents and purposes, it _wasn’t_ toxic. Unless you were Gamora. Or, he assumed, more accurately, unless you were Zen-Whoberi, but there was no way of testing that particular theory. Then, apparently, your whole respiratory system was in danger of shutting down if you breathed in the weird noxious air on the creepy planet for too long.

It had taken them a while to realise, since the symptoms didn’t show up until a day or so later. And of course, Gamora being Gamora, she’d fought it at first. Apparently, alongside her ‘assassin don’t dance’ outlook, she also had a policy that was something close to ‘assassin don’t get sick’. Anyone could see she wasn’t herself however, and a steady – and distressingly fast – decline in her health precipitated her collapse in the Milano’s kitchen area.

Everything after that had been a quick-fire succession of frantic action after frantic action to find out what was wrong with her. And to make sure they dealt with it accordingly.

Drax had carried Gamora to her bunk, Rocket had made the necessary calls to a nearby health facility, Groot had waved his tiny arms until they’d moved his pot to Gamora’s bedside table so he could keep watch over her, and Peter himself had uselessly worn a hole in the ship’s metaphorical carpet outside her door.

After about an hour, a hospital on a nearby planet had used some really quite neat technology installed aboard the Milano to diagnose her remotely and had told them that, because of all her cybernetic enhancements, she wasn’t in any imminent danger. In fact the enhancements were the only reason she was still alive. She just needed to sleep it all off; her body would do the rest for her.

The problem was that that had been two and a half days ago, and she hadn’t woken since. The longer she’d been unconscious, the more he’d found himself coming to check on her, worried that if he left for too long, she might deteriorate.

“If you’re so concerned about her, why don’t you just stay?” a voice behind – and below – him asked. “You’re driving the rest of us crazy with your constant up-and-down, here-and-there,” Rocket grumbled, and Peter slowly turned to face him.

“Isn’t that a bit…?”

“A bit what? _Creepy_?” Rocket asked pointedly.

“Point taken.” Staying the night was hardly any worse than him standing over her, just watching her sleep, for goodness only knew how long.

Still, it felt more than a little wrong as he slowly, gently lowered himself onto the bed, weirdly scared to wake her despite the fact that he wanted nothing more than for her to wake up and just be alright again.

He hoped too that she wouldn’t wake up and kill him for worrying so much. He knew Gamora never wanted to make a fuss or be any trouble, so she’d probably hate the fact that she’d caused, well, a fuss. But even so, that’d be all kinds of ironic. Not to mention annoying.

***

As it turned out, his well-intended bedside vigil turned into an unintentional nap, one that only ended when her voice close to his ear jolted him awake in a panic.

Typical.

“Peter?” his heart did a funny twist he didn’t want to consider at the weak quiver to her voice. She sounded disorientated and confused. “What are you doing? What happened?” In spite of how long she’d been asleep, she still sounded exhausted. Gamora had always been so strong it was strangely painful to hear her sounding so frail. Things didn’t get better when he turned to face her. She looked as ill as she sounded.

Unconsciously bringing a hand up to her hair, he gazed down at her, taking a moment to blink the sleep out of his eyes.

“You collapsed. There was something on that planet that made you sick. I’ve been worried, and didn’t want to leave you,” he murmured. The look she gave him was intense as she held his gaze and, in an attempt to dispel the tension, he added, “neither did Groot.” In fact, the faint sound of tiny snores was just audible amongst the ever-present hum of the ship.

“I don’t get sick,” she muttered, words undercut by a small coughing fit. Even that seemed to take it out of her and her eyelids started drooping again.

“No,” he agreed gently, hand still tangled in her hair, voice a gentle whisper. “I know. Go back to sleep now.”

“Mmph,” she hummed, unconsciously burrowing closer to him as she drifted off again and he couldn’t help but smile down fondly at her, watching her sleep, wriggling around to get comfortable.

Lying there with her body pressed against his was strangely nice until it wasn’t, which was around the time he found himself running to the Milano’s bathroom, an alarming quantity of blood running from his hand down his arm. Lesson learnt: don’t stretch out on Gamora’s bed, especially if that involves sticking your hand under her pillow.

At least he’d worked out where she kept her knives while she slept. Old assassin habits, apparently, died hard.


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

By the six month mark with a new team on a new-old ship, Peter had learnt a lot, outside of where Gamora sometimes kept her knives.

Lesson one: Rocket secretly liked having the top of his head petted, though he had to be pretty well-served to permit it, and even then it was a bit dicey. Peter scarcely got away with it and Drax rarely tried, but he’d seen Gamora reach out tentatively a few times and withdraw a few minutes later with her hand still attached to her arm, so that had to be good.

Lesson two: if you forgot the metaphor rule, and said ‘there’s more than one way to skin a cat’ in front of Drax, you’d discover that there are at least seventeen ways to skin a cat. Peter still didn’t know – nor did he want to find out – why Drax was so well-versed in the art of cat-skinning. In fact, he still felt a bit nauseated whenever he thought about the whole thing.

Lesson three: Groot really, like _really_ , loved the Jackson Five. In fact, one day, ‘I Want You Back’ began playing out over the Milano’s main speakers over and over on loop until Peter, thinking the cassette player was jammed, went to investigate and caught Groot using all the strength he muster in his tiny arms to turn the dial to rewind the tape as the song finished. It was adorable, but it was also too good to resist, and for a while, Peter would casually slide his pot just a little more than Groot’s arm’s length away from the dial, then leave the room for a short while before sliding him back when he re-entered. This went on for a few days until eventually, he’d found Gamora sat waiting for him, arms crossed, shaking her head in righteous disbelief. Glancing down, he found she’d moved Groot back, and he was staring up at Peter, mirroring Gamora’s stance, shaking his head in time with her.

But if he’d really learnt anything, it was that if Gamora said a mission was too dangerous then it was definitely too dangerous. Especially when the majority of the team was out of commission.

“Look you guys are worrying over nothing. So you two are still too _weak_ to do anything of use,” Rocket said, pausing to add in a little snicker for effect, “but I say me and Drax go in there, get the stolen items, hopefully murder a few bad guys, and blam! We get out, get the reward money, head to the nearest bar, get drunk. All in a day’s work.”

Gamora had rolled her eyes at Rocket’s comment about being weak.

“I am _not_ too weak, I’ll happily come w – ”                                                                             

“No.”

“I am Groot.”                                                                                                           

Peter, Drax, and Groot had all spoken together, and Gamora’s eyes flicked between them.

“I’m not – ”

“You have only just begun to regain your strength after your fever. It would be unwise to go,” Drax said thoughtfully, and from his pot, Groot nodded enthusiastically. Because he was still ship-bound, the little guy worried about everyone more than ever.

“And you’re out I take it Quill?” Rocket asked, though this time he was more business-like, all traces of sarcasm gone.

Peter nodded.

On their last mission, Peter had sustained a pretty bad head injury which had left him close to useless for a while. The team had seemed overstretched in the face of not just Groot’s absence but also Gamora’s, and Peter had been trying to help out Drax, who he’d found fighting off quite literally fifteen guys at the same time. Inadvertently, Peter had wound up in a similar position, and while bad guys one to six had gone down relatively easily and number seven was on the ropes, number eight had crept up behind him and got in one hard, painful blow to the back of his head and he’d gone down.

The last thing he remembered as his vision swam was Rocket’s shout of,

“Hey, coward! Try this for sneakin’ up behind people: Blam! Murdered you!”

He’d woken up hours later to the feel of Gamora pressing a cold flannel to his head, with the headache to end all headaches and a pretty nasty concussion which had left him tired, dazed, and with almost no reflexes to speak of.

It was so bad, in fact, that for a few days Rocket had taken to throwing every non-lethal object in sight at Peter, yelling,

“Think fast!” and laughing when Peter was unable to do anything of the sort. Sometimes he wound up just dropping a cushion, at others he found himself covered in whatever was meant to be for dinner that night.

The whole thing had only stopped when, one day, Gamora (apparently now in the habit of stopping this kind of behaviour) threw a book at Rocket whilst he’d been holding a tray of soil ready to repack Groot’s pot.

“Rocket, think fast!”

The book had hit home and, covered in dirt and cursing her colourfully, Rocket had trudged off to shower.

Peter had smiled at her. “Thanks.”

“It’s okay,” she replied, failing to bite back a wide grin. “Just – don’t thank me too much,” her voice quavered as she tried to suppress a laugh. “That time in the kitchen with you covered in Drax’s dinner was _hysterical_ and I kind of wish I’d thought of it before Rocket.” He’d have tried to smack her shoulder, but he’d have probably missed.

His reflexes still hadn’t improved much since then, so he shrugged at Rocket.

“I’d probably wind up being more of a hindrance.”

“So, it’s decided,” Rocket announced grandly. “Me and Drax’ll go.”

Rocket seemed to be in no mood to wait, and it was kind of hard to argue that someone else should go too when their only options were a concussed man who couldn’t stop dropping things, a woman with her back to them at the control panel, currently consumed by a coughing fit, and, well, a sapling. But it didn’t stop Gamora from trying. Once her coughs had subsided, at least.

“Rocket I’m telling you. I’ve been to this planet before, I know the people, it’s too dangerous for just two people and – they’ve gone haven’t they?” she sighed, turning round to find only Peter and Groot looking back at her.

***

To her credit, she’d done nothing but show concern from the moment Rocket had radioed through to them, less than an hour after they left.

“Yeah, like I said,” Rocket shouted out to them, the sounds of gunshots echoing in the background, “this mission is too dangerous, we had to split up to to get away.”

Peter would have at least said ‘I told you so’ a couple of times but, helpfully, Gamora refrained, and they’d all gone over an adapted plan for Drax and Rocket to meet up and get the hell out of there and back to the ship, stolen items or not, but it was going to take until morning. They’d also extracted a promise that one or both of them would radio in from time to time.

***

By two o’clock, Groot finally lost his battle to stay awake, and Peter felt as though he wasn’t far behind.

He yawned, stretching out indulgently.

“Hey, promise me something?” he said to Gamora suddenly. She’d been lost to her own thoughts – whatever they were – and jerked her head up suddenly to look at him.

“What’s that?”

“If I accidentally nod off here, you won’t stab me in the hand again.”

“Again? What do you mean again?”

“You know, last time, when I wound up injured after I slept near you because you stabbed me.”

 “I didn’t stab you Quill. I was too sick to stab you.”

“Are you _sure_ about that?”

She cast him a long, withering look.

“Positive.”

“So you do acknowledge that you get sick?”

“I _got_ sick; one time only. And you injured yourself. Not my fault.”

“You kept _knives_ under your pillow!”

“And? I’m an assassin,”

“Ex-assassin.”

“ _Ex_ -assassin then. Same difference, the whole not being surrounded by enemies things took some getting used to.”

“Hmph. Well that’s understandable, I suppose.”

“Good. I’m glad we’ve established that then.”

“Wait. Established what?”

“That I didn’t stab you in the hand when I was lying, _deathly ill_ , in bed.”

“You were never deathly ill, but you _are_ a liar. We didn’t establish that, I didn’t agree to anything of the sort!”

“I don’t need your agreement to know I’m right.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“I’m counting on it.”

He laughed quietly.

“Seriously though,” she went on as his chuckle turned into another yawn, “you should sleep.”

It was definitely an enticing idea.

“What about you though?”

“What about me?” she asked softly. For a moment, he just watched her as the light from the control panel danced idly across her face, yellow beams playing soft against the high, proud angles of her cheekbones, and the meandering rise and fall of her lips.

“You need to sleep too,” he said eventually.

“It’s okay. I want to wait for the others to make radio contact again,” she said, brow furrowing slightly. She had her head propped up on her hand, elbow on the table in front of them as she stared ahead at the sleeping figure of Groot on the centre of the table, absently running a finger around the rim of his pot.

“They’ll be fine you know.”

“I do,” she admitted eventually, but her tone was still heavy.

They watched Groot in companionable silence for a while. He’d only just started blooming again, but didn’t have too much control over it, and under their gaze tiny white flowers, reminiscent of the apple blossoms on the tree that used to sit outside his home on Terra, slowly began opening up along his arms.

Gamora smiled.

“He only seems to do that in his sleep if he’s dreaming about something nice. They’ll be gone in a minute or two.” Peter knew that Gamora often had trouble sleeping – there wasn’t exactly much in her past that allowed for happy dreams of her own. He’d caught her sat in the exact same spot on many a night, when he’d had a late night, or been making his way to the bathroom or kitchen. They never spoke in those moments, just shared a smile and a look as Peter passed by.

Sure enough the little flowers quickly came loose and fluttered downwards. Gamora caught one on the tip of her finger and gently perched it atop Groot’s head.

She glanced back up at Peter once the flower was set at a suitably jaunty angle, watched as his eyes drooped closed against his will.

“Go on,” she urged, “sleep. I’ll take the first watch this time,” she joked, nudging his shoulder with her own.

Smiling gratefully he settled back in his chair, too tired and comfortable to bother with his bunk.

“Thanks. Make sure you call me in a few hours though, yeah?”

“Sure.”

***

She didn’t wake him of course, mirroring his actions in the Kyln, and he woke with an undignified grunt who knew how many hours later to the sound of Rocket’s voice somewhere off to his right.  

“Well, well, well. What’s going on here?”

He jerked awake and realised he’d leaned over in his sleep, his head coming to rest on something hard and solid that felt a little like a shoulder. He realised a moment later that it felt like a shoulder because it _was_ a shoulder. Gamora’s shoulder.

Sitting up and wiping sleep from his eyes, he turned to Gamora.

“I thought you were gonna wake me!”

She shrugged delicately.

“Rocket and Drax radioed in to say everything was okay, so I figured I should just let you sleep. Your snoring suggested you needed it.”

“I don’t snore.”

“Whatever you say Starlord.”

Rocket raised his voice to cut across them before their bickering could begin fully.

“Well, we’re just fine thanks so much for asking.” He chose to ignore Drax’s mutter of ‘but Rocket, they did not ask’ in favour of dumping a heavy bag on the table next to Groot. “We even got the booty out. So, how about that bar?”

“Rocket it’s ten in the morning.”

“Eh, it’s five o’clock on some planet, let’s go land there.”


End file.
